Maintaining trust in engagement outputs across teams and time

Engagement data is only useful to the organisations that use it if they can completely trust that data. That means building trust in engagement outputs within a team, and with other teams across an organisation. The first step in achieving that is combatting one of the most common issues in teams conducting engagement activities: fragmentation.

Engagement fragmentation is rarely intentional

Almost every organisation - particularly within the public sector - sets out to have a “joined up” way of working between teams. Organisation-wide processes, inter-team communication and training, and an active senior leadership can go a long way towards creating a shared culture between teams. However, it is often inevitable that those working on different projects across multiple systems will begin to develop team specific idiosyncrasies. 

This is particularly true for teams that are using different types of engagement activity. For example, a team conducting large-scale public consultations may develop different processes to those who are generally holding smaller stakeholder workshops.

Even teams that are working on very similar engagement types within the same sector can develop their own way of doing things. The top three reasons for this are:

• Different management styles: Team culture and practice is strongly influenced by management style, and the approach of management to existing systems. A manager that was trained to do something a certain way twenty years ago will likely have a different approach to someone who qualified the year before.
• Different experience: The experience of all team members also influences the way processes are conducted and followed. A well established team is likely to have its own way of doing things and may be more resistant to change.
• Different systems: Perhaps the most important of all is where different teams are accessing different systems, and using multiple digital tools to conduct engagement. 

While the individual experience of team members can be a strength, when it comes to citizen engagement, this difference can lead to something called fragmentation. This is where having systems that are not sufficiently “joined up” causes data to be missed or lost, issues in transference and translation, and systemic inefficiency in the engagement process.

Context is the first thing to disappear

When engagement begins to fragment across an organisation, the first thing to be affected is context. The purpose of an engagement activity can be significantly obscured, particularly when being viewed through a different system.

For example, a great deal of engagement data will be a small part of a much larger process around a certain decision or regulatory requirement. When that data is moved from one system to another, intent can become detached from purpose, making it harder for decision-makers to understand how the data was intended to be used. An activity that was meant to be an early fact-finding discussion with interested residents could be taken out of context and treated as a late stage concluding consultation.

Constraints too can become lost. Every engagement activity operates within certain constraints; budgets, legal requirements, timelines or existing policies. If engagement data is separated from the documentation detailing these constraints - as often happens when moved between teams and systems - these constraints can be unwittingly ignored or altered. If used as part of a statutory process, this could have serious legal consequences down the line.

Audience is an important context for almost all engagement data. Inclusivity is a requirement of many public engagement processes, which means ensuring that a representative number of citizens from all affected communities take part in an engagement activity. When data is taken out of context, this detail can be lost and a decision may be made based on information that represents the views of only a specific section of a given community.

Fragmentation weakens the link between public engagement and decisions

Similarly, this fragmentation can create further problems when systems used for analysis and insights are stored in different places. Analysis of engagement inputs can become uneven between teams, and most importantly the link between responses and decision-making could be weakened.

When engagement data is separated from the systems used to analyse it, decision-makers may only see summaries, extracts or final reports rather than the underlying evidence. This can make it more difficult to trace how conclusions were reached, particularly when several teams have handled the information at different stages of a process using their own systems.

Over time, this can make evidence hard to defend. If a decision is questioned by regulators or challenged legally, organisations may struggle to demonstrate clearly how responses were interpreted and how they were used to inform the final outcome. What was originally a well-documented engagement exercise may become opaque simply because the supporting information is scattered.

Fragmentation can also lead to inconsistencies in how engagement evidence is interpreted. Different teams may apply different methods when reviewing similar responses. As a result, insights generated from engagement activity may not be easily comparable across projects, making it harder to build a consistent evidence base for engagement activity. This also makes it difficult to demonstrate fairness, if similar contexts have vastly different resolutions.

Organisational memory erodes over time

Memory is rarely reliable. Numerous studies have shown that someone will usually recall a memory very differently months later compared to the day it happened. Not only are details lost over time, but some details can even be changed. The same is true of organisational memory. 

Organisational memory can fade or shift, particularly in organisations with high staff turnover. It is also a problem for organisations that regularly work in fields where they are expected to have long memories. For example, in areas where engagement activities like public consultations may be used to inform decisions that are made years in the future.

Too often, teams will rely on the individual knowledge and experience of a senior member of staff. If that member of staff were to leave the organisation, processes that relied on knowing where certain files were stored or how to access and navigate a specific system may also be lost.

It is often difficult to tell where the weaknesses in a system are until they fail. That is particularly true when it comes to organisational memory. Waiting for failures to happen however, is simply not an option when it comes to vital democratic processes. Instead, it is better to try to ensure a consistent redundancy within knowledge systems. This is where govtech can step in.

Interpretation diverges when engagement is accessed through different systems

We have already established how having multiple systems used across different teams - or even multiple tools used needlessly within a team - can cause significant issues. Multiple versions, incongruous formats, and differing interpretations can affect regulatory assurance and internal confidence in decision-making.

Thankfully this issue is  relatively simple to address, with a solution that many public bodies have been rapidly moving towards: using a single unified engagement platform across teams.

By using a purpose-built citizen engagement platform, engagement teams can:

• Create organisation-wide templates for each engagement type, which can then be used across teams and used repeatedly over time.
• Ensure all data is delivered in the same way, removing some of the differing analysis caused by uneven data presentation.
• Creates a single place where supporting documentation can be uploaded, displaying it clearly to participants and to decision-makers.
• Allows analysis to be conducted within the platform itself, removing issues with version control caused by moving data to external systems.
• Delivers feedback and outcomes to participants using the same system they input data into, making it far less likely that respondents will be overlooked or feedback missed.

Of course there is still room for individual interpretation - and therefore human error - however, removing the technical barriers to easy repeatability and validity is a significant step towards combatting fragmentation.

Why engagement outcomes lose authority without a coherent system of record

For citizens to trust and respect decisions made on their behalf by public bodies and governments, it is essential that they believe that those decisions have been made fairly. That means trust that decisions were based on strong evidence, competent analysis, and were approached using the same processes as those used in similar cases.

It is no different for those working within the organisations themselves. In order to trust that decisions have been made following the appropriate regulations, they must be able to rely on the systems and processes they use on a day-to-day basis. If these systems are unreliable, difficult to navigate or unfamiliar, trust can diminish and fragmentation can emerge. If engagement professionals cannot trust the data they are presented with, they cannot in good conscience make significant decisions affecting the public.

It is therefore vital to establish trust in the systems they depend on. Systems must preserve the coherence of data, establish continuity, and ensure a shared understanding across all engagement activity within and across teams. 

For this to be effective, there must be a level of leadership and accountability. Teams must show a willingness to communicate with each other, and a willingness to change established routines that rely on outdated technologies. Above all, it is essential to have a consistent system for recording engagement activity that could be understood by every relevant team member now and in years to come. Digital engagement platforms can and already are providing this much needed coherence.

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Citizen Space is the go-to govtech platform for engaging with citizens, managing large scale government consultations and simplifying statutory processes. If you’d like to learn more about how our software can be used to maintain consistent engagement outputs, book a free demo today. 

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